“My hope is that’ll blind me to you still being here.” Sissy motioned to the bartender for another shot, and she didn’t even have to look to know Ronnie had made a desperate escape. Not that she blamed her. Ronnie had her own mother to deal with. “You are still leaving tomorrow, right, Momma?”

A glass of champagne in her hand, Janie Mae Lewis rested against the bar. Her momma never had to try to look scary. She simply was. While at the same time, pleasant looking. No one had ever accused Sissy of being pleasant…ever. Lookswise, she took after her daddy’s side. Dark hair, light brown eyes—as opposed to her momma’s amber ones—and a square jaw.

The other Lewis sisters weren’t nearly as hard looking, nor did they work Sissy’s last nerve the way her mother did.

Mostly because her mother had the tendency to say things like, “You know if you tried not glaring so much, you could look real pretty.”

Sissy let out a breath at her momma’s words, remembering her promise to her daddy. She wouldn’t fight her momma no matter how much she wanted to. “I’m sure somewhere in there, you’ve hidden a compliment. So thank you for that.”

“I just want you to be happy, Sissy Mae.” And Sissy felt so proud she kept that snort all to herself. “And you won’t be happy if you keep scaring off every male that comes your way. I mean look how happy your brother is. And Jessie Ann’s already pregnant. So they’ll be happy with a passel of kids, and you’ll be their pups’ favorite aunt. You can visit them during the holidays, and maybe their dog will sleep on your feet at night.”

Sissy turned, ready to tell her mother to shut the fuck up when someone slammed into her from behind.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.” The lioness had gotten a bit of champagne on Sissy’s dress and was desperately wiping at it. “I’m so so sorry. Let me help you get that clean.” She smiled at Janie Mae. “I swear, I’m such a clumsy ass, Janie. Let me get her cleaned up. We’ll be right back.” Then she was dragging Sissy out of the ballroom and off into the darkness until she stopped at a marble bench.

“Sit, baby-girl. Sit.”

Sissy did, and that’s when she felt the wave of pure rage wash over her. If this lioness hadn’t pulled her away, Sissy would have broken her promise to her father—and possibly ended up going to jail for the night—and she’d never have forgiven herself.

“Easy. Just breathe. Here,” a firm hand against her back pushed her down until her head was below her knees, “breathe, baby-girl. Just breathe. Deep ones in and out until the ringing stops.”

How did she know there was a ringing in her ears? Because there definitely was ringing.

After a good ten minutes or so, Sissy finally felt strong enough to sit up. Thelioness sat next to her, smoking a Marlboro Light, and Sissy got a good look at her.

“Miss O’Neill?” Mitch’s mother. Sissy had only had a chance to say a quick hello when she’d passed her in the gaming room. The lioness had been cleaning out some wolves, and Sissy had left her to her work.

“Oh, darlin’, call me Roxanne. Or Roxy. It’s not my real name, mind you. A nice Irish girl gets a nice Irish name. But do you know how many friggin’ Patricia Maries there are at Mass every Sunday? So when I was nine, I decided I wanted to be called Roxanne.” She grinned, and in that moment, she looked just like her son. “One of my aunts was a big reader, and when I told everybody at Sunday dinner that I was now Roxanne, she asked me if that was because of that book, Cyrano something. And I told her—and the priest who was having dinner at our house—that I got the name from the hooker who worked the corner near the ice cream parlor me and my sisters hung out at after school.”

Sissy burst out laughing while Roxy shook her head. “Let me tell you, baby-girl, that night, I did not sleep on my back. My ma tore my ass up.” She shrugged. “But everybody still calls me Roxy.”

She reached into her small Gucci purse and pulled out a half-used pack of cigarettes. “Here.”

Sissy shook her head. “I quit.” About twelve years ago, in fact.

“Do you want to get through the rest of the night without killing your own mother?”

Realizing she was right, Sissy took a cigarette from the pack and let Roxy light it up for her with her gold lighter.

As Sissy sat back and smoked her cigarette, she looked closely at Mitch’s mother. Like all lionesses, she was sort of gold all over. But her hair had lighter blond streaks and was combed out so it looked like a sexy wild mane. She wore a tight gold dress that may have been a few years too young for her and gold designer shoes that probably cost a fortune. Although Sissy wouldn’t know much about that since she was a boot girl. Work boots, cowboy boots, biker boots, whatever. If they were boots, Sissy wore them.

Mitch’s momma was beautiful, but there was a wildness to her that made Sissy take to her instantly. None of that stuck-up lioness shit she’d seen from the Llewellyns and the other East Coast Prides attending the wedding. This woman was classless and tasteless, and Sissy knew in that instant that she adored her.

“I gotta say, baby-girl, my boy talks about you all the time. But the conversation is definitely weird.” She turned a bit and looked at Sissy. “Did he really give you a wedgie the other day?”

Sissy laughed, remembering their tussle during the rehearsal dinner. She thought her momma was going to have a stroke she was so embarrassed. “Uh…yeah. But I kind of deserved it.”